Benkiranes PJD opposes the proposed generalization of the French Baccalaureate in

Casablanca- According to Al-Akhbar, The PJD opposes the generalization of the French Baccalaureate in public education.The party has delegated the mission of blockading this project initiated by the ministry of National Education to the National Union of Moroccan Workers, its union ally. The latter has described the initiative proposed by Rachid Belmokhtar’s department as “a grave violation of the national sovereignty” and “a humiliation of the Arabic language”.The generalization of the French Baccalaureate was concluded in the framework of a partnership agreement between France and Morocco during the visit of the French minister of National Education, Vencent Peillon, to Rabat last February. The PJD was the first to react against the initiative and the parliamentary caucus has not gone beyond discussing the constitutionality of the convention. The PJD seems very concerned by this measure.According to Al-Akhbar, the generalization project will be challenged by all sorts of things, alluding to the debate of introducing the teaching of Darija into primary education. Such decision will only contribute to discrimination among students, and would weaken the Moroccan Baccalaureate especially because the French language is no longer the language of science, the same source added.The politicization of the issue of the language of education has crippled the Moroccan educational system since Mohamed El Fassi’s Arabization and has deprived the related debates of utility and practicality.“Education is of paramount importance and should be dealt with as such, as the future of Morocco strongly hinges upon it,” a teacher of physics told MWN.“We hope that today’s reform efforts will stress the quality of education rather than promoting the ideologies of certain parties or classes,” he added.